2020 has certainly been an awful year. We aren't even halfway through yet, and I already want to return it like that impulse jacket bought from a late night pop up ad. The pandemic rages on, though it now competes with other awful things for our attention, some by-products of the quarantine like job loss, small businesses struggling, tensions building from continued close confinement with others, and the shit show that is an American election year. And then there is the seemingly endless stream of race-based murders arrogantly captured on video and somehow, still a subject for debate.
I understand that as a middle-aged (that hurt a bit), white woman, I am no expert here, but I have been thinking a lot about bias lately and how I came by my own.
Of course I have bias - we all do, though perhaps not about the same things. I have no idea how people get to the headspace that empowers them to call police on others for "birding while black" or exercising/barbecuing/birthday partying/driving/jogging, etc. with melanin. I don't understand it. I don't.
When I was young, my mom, sister, and I were poor and "country" AF. Meaning, we lived in the middle of rural Florida, surrounded by sandy orange groves, cattle pastures, and uneducated people. (see, my bias is peeking out already) My Florida, as a child, included people of different races, but nearly all acts of aggression toward me or my family came from other people who looked like us. The people who stole from us following my stepfather's death were related (by marriage) or neighbors. The mean girls at school were white girls from Windermere, an affluent enclave in West Orange County, who exploited my self-consciousness regarding my horrific lack of personal style. (I'd love to say that I had Molly Ringwald's "poor, but fabulous" fashion sense, but no. I was awkward, badly dressed, and without the benefit/curse of being raised in town. I was not blessed with natural social skills or the good looks of a John Hughes film.
The summer between my junior and senior year in high school, my mom moved our little family to Gainesville in north Florida, which was all kinds of a learning experience. We lived in a middle class house in a middle class neighborhood. I went away to college, choosing an art school in Brooklyn, NY. Eventually, I settled back in central Florida, working at Disney and taking college classes here and there on the ten-year plan.
Say what you want about growing up here or there, but few places are going to expose one to more diversity than the vacation capital of the world. And while I probably wouldn't hold Disney up as any kind of example for inclusion really, one thing that shaped my twenty-something self was that from day one, they indoctrinate their cast to treat all guests with the cheery, welcoming "get lost in this experience" way. It's funny now, that I don't think of this so much as prep for us to avoid discriminating against people from other cultures, but not going ape shit when celebrities came through. And they did - all the time. Disney cast members come from all over, but are largely college-aged kids (many who stay through their adulthood, even to retirement) who may have less developed impulse control, so training/indoctrination is laid on pretty thick so when one has to give a show at the Great Movie Ride to Michael J. Fox whom one might have crushed on as a kid, one does not completely come to pieces. Part of Disney's secret sauce is being able to replicate the experience consistently over and over and over so that the guests can lose themselves in the moment - leaving the rest of the world and whatever that might entail, outside the gates.
As young cast members, we hardly made much money, so picking up extra hours for special events (conventions that buy out a park, the Disney Marathon, holidays like the 4th of July and New Year's Eve), productions (films, television game show tapings, wrestling, pilots), and the wide variation of "other" (Super Soap Weekends, Star Wars Weekends, visits by presidents, major park anniversaries, and so on) meant that I could be assigned to drive a Disney Channel exec around for a week or provide a tour for Alex Trebek, or transport Susan Lucci by golf cart without embarrassing myself or the company.
But this training spills over, as I imagine all learned behavior does. I was giving a backstage tour to a celebrity chef from California before he gave a presentation to the Florida Imagineers on food as entertainment in the late 90s or so when he asked me about Disney's newish policy providing benefits for same-sex life partners. (This was before he invited me to visit his house in LA where he promised the best margarita of my life. Thanks, but no. ) I remember telling him with some surprise at his question, that I had essentially grown up with the training to provide the same excellent experience to everyone without regard to the details that might only matter to people outside of the parks. I'd not honestly given the announcement much thought. It certainly didn't strike me as controversial.
Decades later, I frame this approach differently in my head. I haven't been in the theme park business for a long time, but I've taught college students from of a wide range of geographies, socio-economic status, professional experience, education, ages, and so on how to not fear writing. As an instructor coaxing out the creative freedom allowing students to share thoughts they know that others will read, I have to lead with kindness. I have to recognize the individual. I have to see the person in order to support them.
So this is where I usually land. Seeing the individual and leading with kindness as much as I can. It's hard sometimes. Bias is real, and while mine may not look the same as yours or your wildly politically incorrect uncle, it's there and I try to be conscious of it. And my approach isn't rosy altruism entirely - this is what works for me. It's a learned behavior like any other. I've had a few jobs in more traditionally male areas and many of the dudes I worked with were assholes at first. Come to think of it - even at Disney tensions existed by "class" all over the place. Attractions vs maintenance. Creatives vs operations. Entertainment vs everybody. Success meant finding ways to interact with people as people, not job titles, not departments, not the mythologies surrounding their group. So defaulting to any kind of approach that assigns characteristics as a whole to a group is not effective.
But, like I said before, it's hard sometimes.
All men are not assholes who will publicly mock a young woman, new to the job in order to shame her into verifying a bias that she can't possibly be a valuable resource to the team. Even if they initially are, sometimes they eventually come around and become allies and good working partners.
All guys don't grope, assault, attempt to shame, frighten or hurt women because they are stronger or older or have an advantage that gives them power. Not all men are rapists.
Criminals might not look like they do in the movies or books of our childhoods.
Church attendance does not guarantee kindness toward one's fellow being.
College education is not the same as intelligence. Having worked in higher education, with plenty of PhDs, I know that a degree doesn't make anyone immune to the same human frailties we all share. I hope though, that the effort in learning how to learn, can make us more aware of how much there is that we could do better. The process of learning is uncomfortable in the best way, as we risk mistakes in order to build understanding.
All bosses aren't going to make you perform your job in an environment of fear . Some are lovely people, genuinely interested in helping staff grow and succeed.
Not all people of means are entitled pricks. Not all people without have hearts of gold.
Compassion and political correctness are not the same thing. Nearly all the cringey moments I've had interacting with others who decry "being PC" are because of a casual mean-spiritedness and absurd blanket attributions that show a laziness of thought.
So here we are, quarantined with family who may hold different opinions, world views, or political affiliations watching the daily shit show that is the news in an election year, during a pandemic with a side of economic crisis and mourning for the thousands of fatalities trying to get through.
Try to lead with kindness. Try to listen as much as you speak. Try to see the individual. Try to do the right thing by others, and by doing that - by your self. Let some of your biases float away a bit before you respond to the cringey uncle or the political neighbor or the person who needs your support right now. Take a breath. Check yourself if you find that you are labeling, just in case. When in doubt, be a nice human.
